Happy Valentine's Day
by razlahan
Summary: Jane ends up in jail on Valentine's Day. No longer a one shot as it now continues into the office for the day. Poor Lisbon. Jane will torment you. I own nothing.
1. In Jail

Patrick Jane was sprawled out across the cell's single bunk in the same way that he often sprawled out on the couch in the CBI office, not asleep but pretending to be as Lisbon was escorted in by a burly town deputy. Her hair was pulled back into a loose pony-tail and she wore jeans and a tee-shirt under a jacket, not her work clothes but more the I-just-slipped-out-of-bed-at-three-in-the-morning variety. She gave the incongruous looking pink and red hearts that lined the police station's walls a look as she passed, raising an eyebrow.

"Hello, Lisbon," Jane said. Somehow, even with his eyes closed, he always seemed to know what was going on.

"Jane, I'm going to kill you," she answered him, mustering a glare.

He opened one eye and peered at her with it. "Geez," he said. "Okay, next time I won't say hello if that's the reply I'm going to get."

"You even sound drunk," she said.

This was true enough. His usually honeyed voice was somewhat slurred this evening, only a little, but enough so that it showed.

"I'm going to kill you," Lisbon repeated.

"No, you're not," Jane said, closing his eyes again, sounding self-assured, as usual, and wearing his usual cat-that-at-the-canary grin.

"I'm going to leave you in here to rot," Lisbon answered.

"No, you're not," Jane said. "You wouldn't have come if you didn't intend to get me out and besides, I wouldn't rot. They have to let me out in the morning either way. And you won't kill me, either."

"No?" Lisbon said.

"Of course not," Jane said. "You can't stay mad at me face to face for anymore than five minutes. Already I can feel your resolve slipping away."

"Oh, so you are psychic now?" Lisbon said, resuming the glare that had indeed began to slip away as she spoke with him.

"No," Jane said. "But your voice was getting less angry sounding. Or at least it was. Now it sounds like anger tinged with annoyance." He opened one eye again and peeked at her face before shutting it. "Yeah, that's right," he concluded.

"Do you think this is funny?" Lisbon said.

"Kind of," Jane said.

"You called me in the middle of the night and you told me you needed me to bail you out of some middle of nowhere little jail," Lisbon said, sounding exasperated and angry and vaguely hurt all at the same time. "For drunk driving of all things."

Jane opened both eyes then and for a moment looked genuinely remorseful. "Sorry about that," he said. "But I had no one else to call. It was you, Rigsby, Van Pelt or Cho. Rigsby probably wouldn't have even woken up and Cho would have taken one look at his caller ID, turned off his phone, and went back to sleep. Van Pelt might have come but I'd have to listen to her moralizing homilies all the way back home and then she'd probably expect to be invited in and things would just get awkward. So I called you. I knew I could count on you to come."

Lisbon just glared.

"Besides," Jane said. "All they have me on is speeding. You don't have to pay to bail me out. I wasn't even over the BAC. I was close, but not over."

"And they arrested you for that?" Lisbon said walking up to the cell.

"I'm not actually even arrested," Jane said. "I'm being held for the public safety and I'll be released as soon as someone vouches that they'll see me home safe."

"Really, Jane," Lisbon said.

"Well, they were going to let me off with a warning," Jane said. "But the deputy, I didn't like him. Petty fellow. I, you know, may have told him that the only reason that he was a cop was so that he could pull over people in nice cars, a sort of revenge against all those kids with the nice cars who used to play on the football team and beat him up in high school for being fat. I may have also told him that he was probably twice the size of those guys then and he should have hit them right back. He'd be so much better adjusted for it and he would have the compulsion to pull over people in nice cars. He didn't take it well."

The deputy standing at the back of the room shifted on his feet, attempting to look menacing. Neither Lisbon nor Jane paid him any mind.

"Really, Jane," Lisbon said, "You insulted him? Couldn't you have just talked you way out of it?"

"I could have," Jane said. "But I wasn't in the mood."

"Really?"

"Happy Valentine's Day, Lisbon," Jane said. Lisbon's face fell from her semi-glare to a frown. "See, it doesn't make you happy, either."

Lisbon sighed. "Jane, that's not a very good excuse," she said.

"I know," Jane said. "But I used to love Valentine's Day. Now I realize how much it makes lonely people even more lonely. I don't like it anymore. I'm sure you know what I mean."

"So you take the route that will give you all of these fine officers of the law and myself a reason to keep you company?" Lisbon said, trying to glare again to cover the frown.

Jane shut his eyes again. "See, it makes you sad, too. And lonely. You're just hiding it under the sarcasm."

"Jane," Lisbon said. "I don't know what to do about you."

"Just get me out of here," he answered softly.

Lisbon's glare finally slipped away and she just looked tired instead. She breathed out deeply and then looked to the deputy. "Let him out," she told him. "He's coming with me."

The deputy gave her a look and then pulled out his keys and unlocked the door to the cell. He opened the door wide before Jane bothered to open his eyes again and stand.

"C'mon," Lisbon said. "Let's go. I want to get back to sleep sometime tonight."

"Of course," Jane said stepping out of the cell.

"A minute," the deputy said going to his desk and picking up a piece of paper. "Your ticket," he said, handing it to Jane with a rather nasty smile.

Jane gave the man his best one hundred watt jaunty smile. "Thank you," he said, taking it. "Bye-bye," he said, following Lisbon out. As he went out the door, though, unable to resist, he turned back and added to the deputy, "Now remember what I said about those fancy cars."

Lisbon grabbed him by his jacket sleeve and pulled him out. Jane examined his ticket as she dragged him towards her car.

"I don't suppose you could loan me ninety bucks?" Jane said.

Lisbon glared at him again and Jane just laughed.

"You totally owe me roses for this," she said.


	2. Not Easy

**Author's Note: this one shot has ceased being a one shot as per the request of bulletproofweeks. Poor Lisbon. A third chapter will follow. Poor, poor Lisbon.**

---

"You really do drive too slowly," Jane said in the passenger seat as Lisbon drove him home.

"You drive too fast," Lisbon answered. "Your speeding ticket proves it, Jane. I win this argument."

"This argument hasn't even begun," Jane said.

Lisbon gave him a look.

"Okay, maybe you win," Jane said. "Turn here."

Lisbon turned down the street leading towards Jane's house. "Nice place," she said, seeing it at the end of the road.

Jane shrugged.

"It's big," Lisbon said.

"Bigger than the little box you live in," Jane said.

"My little box is just the right size," Lisbon said. "Seeing as I'm the only one that lives in it."

"Indeed," Jane said, eyeing his huge empty house at the end of the drive.

"I mean-" Lisbon said, realizing what she had implied.

"It's nothing," Jane said, shrugging again. "Never mind."

Lisbon stopped the car in front of the house. "Try not to do this again, Jane," she said.

Jane grinned. "Well, it's one way to spend the night in good company," he said flippantly as he opened the car door and stepped out.

"Yes, well, next time you want company, don't get arrested, ask me for a date; it's so much easier," Lisbon replied quickly, trying to match his flippant tone. And then she realized what she said. And then she turned bright red.

Jane gave her a look. "Did you just say that you're easy?" Jane questioned and then started laughing. He shut the car door as she gave an indignant squeak and started out toward his front steps, waving good-bye behind him.

Lisbon sat in the car for a minute as Jane went inside, feeling her face burn bright red before she pulled away and drove back to her apartment.

---

Lisbon was, for once, the last person to make it into the CBI office in the morning. Jane, Rigsby, Van Pelt and Cho were already sitting around their desks, doing absolutely nothing.

"So, do you have any plans for Valentine's Day?" Rigsby was asking Van Pelt, while Van Pelt looked rather uncomfortable at the question.

"Morning, boss," Cho said.

"Right," Lisbon said with a scowl. She gave a look to her team. "Don't you have paper work to be filling out or something?" she said.

The team immediately tried to look busy as Lisbon headed into her office.

"What's that about?" Cho said as soon as she was out of the room.

"Don't mind her," Jane said. "I kept her up all night."

Cho gave Jane an odd look but before he could reply Van Pelt asked him, "Hey, you haven't seen the witness statements from the Branicky case, have you?"

"Yeah, I have them," he answered and started riffling through his desk to find them.

Jane took his usual place sprawled out on the couch, looking to take a cat nap just so long as they had nothing for him to do. Patrick Jane did not do paperwork.

Lisbon came out of her office a while later nursing a cup of coffee, which, judging from the improvement in her demeanor, had to be her third or fourth of the morning.

"All right. So, the Branicky case," she said drawing her team's attention, "Jane, sit up. I know you're not asleep."

"Yes, boss," Jane said, sitting up with his cat like grin.

"I want to talk to the mother again," she continued. "We know she hasn't told us everything."

"True," Jane said, catching Lisbon's eye and grinning again. "She knows that her daughter was about to break up with her boyfriend so that she could date his younger brother."

"And you know this how?" Lisbon said.

"Oh, it was a lot of things," Jane said. "The pictures in the girls room, her friends' statements, they all said that she was about to break up with Brad to go out with Jason, and her mother knew because Katie told her mother everything."

"Right," Lisbon said.

"But it wasn't Brad that killed her," Jane said. "He would have killed Jason, too. Or he would have killed just Jason and lived happily ever after with Katie."

"Right, Jane," Lisbon said. "All that tells me is that we need to talk to Brad and Jason again, too."

"If you like," Jane said. He grinned at Lisbon again. "It won't get you anywhere." He thought for a moment. "Well, not unless Jason killed Katie. But for the moment that seems unlikely. He was in love with her."

Jane caught Lisbon's eye again and grinned wider.

"What?" Lisbon said to him. "Stop doing that." He kept grinning and suddenly she began to turn red. "Damn it, Jane" she said. "I am not easy!"

Van Pelt, Rigsby, and Cho's eyes all went wide at that. Van Pelt and Rigsby looked completely dumbfounded. Cho, who at the very least could usually be counted on for a pithy comeback was reduced to, "Um."

"Well," Jane said. "That was awkward." Then he started laughing.

"I-" Lisbon stuttered. "Well- I-"

"Yes?" Jane said.

Lisbon said. "You drive me insane," Lisbon said to him.

"I know," Jane said.

Lisbon closed her eyes and began to rub her temples. "Never mind," she said. She opened her eyes and glared around at her team. "I said nothing," she said. Her face was still burning.

"Of course not, boss," Rigsby said quickly. Cho and Van Pelt nodded their agreement.

"Of course not," Van Pelt said.

"Well," Cho cracked a smile. "I may remember it."

Lisbon gave him a dirty look. "Come on," she said. "We have a job to do."

As they walked out to the CBI truck Van Pelt caught Jane's eye and then looked to Lisbon, then back to Jane, questioning. Jane shrugged. As she was looking at Jane, Van Pelt didn't notice when Rigsby looked between Jane and Lisbon and then looked to Van Pelt hopefully.

All of it made Jane laugh.


	3. Roses

**Last chapter, woo.**

---

The team had left Katie Branicky's house, having gotten precisely out of the dead girl's mother what Jane had said they would, that Katie was going to break up with Brad Matson in order to go out with his little brother and now they were all standing around in the Matson's living room. Neither Brad nor Jason was home. As it turned out they were both at football conditioning.

Paul Matson was regaling the team with how Brad had a scholarship to play college ball next year and that he expected Jason to follow behind his brother. The team listened, trying not to seem impatient as Mr. Matson continued his tale, all except Jane, who wandered around the Matson's living room, eyeing pictures of Brad and Jason as little boys, child's league football trophies on the mantel, varsity letters and athletic awards on the walls. It was more of a showcase than a living room.

"Mr. Matson?" Jane said, interrupting the man's speech.

"Yes," he answered.

"Did you play football in college?"

"No," the man answered. "I blew out my knee my senior year in high school. I had a chance before that, though."

Jane nodded and went back to examining the pictures on the wall.

"Mr. Matson," Lisbon said. "What did you think of Kaitlin Branicky?"

"Katie…" Mr. Matson said. "Well, Brad liked her. But I thought she was bad news."

"Hmm," Lisbon said. "Everyone else we've talked to has said that she was a nice girl."

"She…" Mr. Matson began.

"She was going to break up with Brad to date Jason," Jane finished.

"She spent too much time with Jason," Mr. Matson said. "She liked him. He liked her back. Brad was probably the only one who didn't know."

"Katie's friend Stephanie said that Katie was coming to see Brad the night she died," Lisbon said.

"Brad was at the bowling alley with some friends that night," Mr. Matson said. "Jason was with him. I never saw Katie. I was watching the game on television. If Katie was coming over her she never made it."

Jane looked up from the trophy that he was fiddling with, then. "Yes, she did," Jane said. "You killed her, didn't you?"

"What?" Mr. Matson said.

"What?" Lisbon said.

"Katie came over to break up with Brad," Jane said. "But Brad wasn't here. You got in a fight with her. You didn't like what she was doing to your sons. She told you that she could do anything she wanted to with Brad and Jason and that you couldn't stop her. But you did stop her."

Jane looked to the rest of the team. They were watching him and Mr. Matson closely.

"That's ridiculous," Mr. Matson sputtered. But Mr. Matson was already wearing that frozen look on his face, the one that said he knew he had been caught.

"I beat you bashed her head in with… well, it could have been any one of these trophies, actually," Jane said. He looked around. "But I bet it was that one," he pointed to one engraved, "Brad Matson, Eighth Grade Championship Team, Captain."

"You," Mr. Matson said but he stopped, seemingly not knowing how to continue.

"It was with that one that Brad first showed real promise," Jane said. "I'm sure forensics will find blood on it. You bashed her head in with it and then you threw her in the back of your truck and you dumped her body in the park."

Paul Matson was speechless.

"Mr. Matson," Lisbon said. "You're going to have to come with us."

"They…" Mr. Matson finally said as Rigsby put him in hand cuffs. "They're my sons."

Jane nodded to the man as Cho and Lisbon took Mr. Matson out.

"So," Rigsby said to Van Pelt behind him. "If you don't have plans tonight, would you like to go out to dinner?"

Van Pelt immediately looked alarmed.

"Platonically, of course," Rigsby said. Jane left as Van Pelt sputtered.

"Are you coming, Jane?" Lisbon called to him will Cho stood by the truck reading Paul Matson his rights.

"I'll find my own way back," Jane said. "I've got something I need to do." With that he started off down the street.

---

Jane returned to the CBI headquarters later that evening. He was walking in as Cho walked out.

"I suppose Mr. Matson confessed to everything?" Jane said.

"Yeah," Cho said.

"I'm sure his sons aren't going to take this well," Jane said.

"Probably not," Cho said. "Luckily, Rigsby and Van Pelt get to contact them. I'm off for the night."

"All right," Jane said.

Cho eyed what Jane held in his hands then. "Look, about Lisbon," he started. He didn't seem to know how to go on, though.

Jane laughed. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm not going to hurt her."

Cho nodded. "Well," he said. "I mean, I wasn't worried or anything."

"Yeah," Jane said. "I know what you mean." He waved the other man off. "Good night," he said.

Jane walked into the office. Rigsby was hovering beside Van Pelt who was talking on the phone, speaking soothingly to the person on the other side. Jane assumed that it was Brad Matson. He wondered how the boy would take it that his father had murdered his girlfriend because she was going to break up with him in order to date his brother. He didn't envy the boy the next few days.

Jane also briefly wondered whether Van Pelt would accept Rigsby's dinner offer. He decided that the odds were sixty-forty in Rigsby's favor before he headed into Lisbon's office. He knew Rigsby and Van Pelt also eyed him as he passed.

Jane stuck his head into the office first.

"What, Jane?" Lisbon said.

"You were right, I owe you these," he said. He stepped in the door, then, holding roses.

Lisbon blinked, dumbstruck for a moment. "They're beautiful," she said finally.

"Yes, they are," Jane said, handing them to her. "Unfortunately, they probably sealed the idea in the rest of the team's minds that we're sleeping together."

Lisbon's eyes grew huge. "What?" she said. "But we're not sleeping together!"

"I know," Jane said. "Frustrating, isn't it?"

He laughed at the look on her face at this, opening and closing her mouth, trying to say something and failing. "You look like a goldfish doing that," Jane said. She closed her mouth then and just glared at him. "And I think it's funny personally."

"You think everything is funny!"

"Yes, well, next time, try not shouting out 'I'm not easy,' in the middle of a briefing," Jane said. "It gives people the wrong idea."

"I should have left you in jail," she answered.

"Maybe," Jane said. "But you don't actually think that."

"You have no idea what I think," she answered.

"But of course I do," Jane said. "That's why I'm here." He watched her face as she tried to formulate a response, still holding the roses in her hands. Finally, he just laughed at her. "Happy Valentine's Day, Lisbon," he said before walking out.


End file.
